Behavior-based selection of items to present on affiliate sites

ABSTRACT

A content provider system interacts with a network of web sites to provide behavior-based content to users. Operators of the web sites add widgets to selected web pages of their sites. The widgets, when executed on the computing devices of users who view the selected web pages, report user-generated events to the content provider system. The content provider system analyses the reported events to detect behavioral associations between particular web sites, web pages, products, and/or other types of items. The widgets may also retrieve and display behavior-based content that is based on these item-to-item behavioral associations. For example, when a user views a particular web page, a widget on that page may request and display descriptions of, and links to, other sites or pages that are (a) behaviorally related to the page being viewed or an item represented thereon, and/or (b) behaviorally related to the past browsing activities of the particular user.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Relatively large and sophisticated web sites typically implement someform of personalization system to provide personalized content, such aspersonalized item recommendations, to their users. Such personalizationsystems may, for example, monitor and record one or more types ofitem-related user activity such as item purchases, item viewing events,and/or item rentals, and analyzes the collected data to detect andquantify associations between particular items. When a user accesses aparticular item, such as a particular product in a catalog of ane-commerce site, or an article on a news site, an appropriate messagemay be displayed notifying the user of related items (e.g., “people whoviewed this item also viewed . . . ,” or “based on your recentpurchases, you may also be interested in . . . ”). The personalizationsystem may also generate personalized item recommendations that arebased on a target user's purchase history, item viewing history, itemratings, and/or some other type of user data.

Unfortunately, personalization systems can be expensive to implement andmaintain. For example, a relatively sophisticated personalization systemtypically requires infrastructure components which, among other tasks,store customer behavior data, process the stored behavior data to detectthe item associations, and store databases which relate items to oneanother. As a catalog of items to be recommended increases, the amountof data and computing power needed to generate the recommendations growssignificantly. As a result, among other reasons, sophisticatedpersonalization systems are implemented, in many cases, by relativelylarge companies that can start and maintain such systems.

Moreover, for a variety of reasons, some personalization systems tend torely on a limited set of behavioral data from which to providepersonalized content. Since the value to end-users of personalizationservices is dependent on the size and quality of the underlying datasetsfrom which personalization associations are drawn, further improvementsin the amount and application of behavioral data captured is desirable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates one embodiment of a content providersystem that monitors user actions across, and generates behavioralcontent for display on, a plurality of member web sites;

FIG. 2 illustrates the widget-based display of behavioral content on aweb page of a member site;

FIG. 3 illustrates one embodiment of a method of storing event data andgenerating behavior-based content to satisfy widget-generated contentrequests;

FIG. 4 illustrates one embodiment of a method of generating item-to-itemassociation mappings using collected behavioral data;

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a process by which a web siteoperator may register with, and configure its web site to interact with,the content provider system;

FIG. 6 schematically illustrates another embodiment of a web siteconfigured to utilize widgets that retrieve content from the contentprovider system;

FIG. 7 illustrates a sequence of steps that may be performed by thecontent provider system to charge and pay operators of member web sitesfor user referrals; and

FIG. 8 illustrates in pseudocode one JavaScript-based embodiment of awidget.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

A system that embodies multiple different inventions will now bedescribed with reference to the drawings. As will be apparent, many ofthe inventive features described herein may be used independently ofothers, and may be implemented differently than described herein. Thus,nothing in this detailed description is intended to imply that anyparticular feature, characteristic, or component of the disclosed systemis essential. The invention is defined only by the claims.

I. OVERVIEW

A system is disclosed that uses web page widgets to collect behavioraldata descriptive of user activities across a plurality of web sites.(The term “widget” refers generally to executable code that is or can beincluded in a web page or other document.) For example, when a useraccesses a web page that includes a widget, the widget may cause theuser's browser/computer to report the access event over the Internet toa monitoring system. The reported event data may, for example, consistof the URL accessed and a user or client system identifier, or mayinclude more detailed information such as an item type identifier (e.g.,product, news story, blog, etc.), an item identifier, and/or an eventtype (e.g., view, purchase, download, etc.).

The collected clickstream data of many users is analyzed on anaggregated basis to detect behavioral associations between one or moretypes of items, such as web sites, web pages, user profiles (e.g.professional or social networking profiles), products, productcategories, news stories, news feeds, blogs, music files, video files,documents, keywords, etc. These item-to-item behavioral associations mayinclude both intra-site associations (e.g., page A on site A is relatedto page B on site A) and inter-site or “cross-site” associations (e.g.,site A is related to site B, or page A on site B is related to page C onsite D). In addition, the collected data may be used to detectbehavioral associations between disparate item types (e.g., site A isrelated to product B available from site C).

The widgets may also be used to display various types of behavior-basedcontent on the accessed web pages. This behavioral content may bederived from the item-to-item behavioral associations mined from theaggregated behavioral data. For example, when a user accesses aparticular web page, the widget included on the page may retrieve anddisplay images or other descriptions of particular items (e.g., websites, web pages, products, etc.) that are related to the particularpage or site being accessed. Each such image or description may serve asa link for accessing the displayed item. For instance, while viewing apage of site A, a user may be presented with a thumbnail image of thehome page of related site B, and may be able to click on this image toaccess site B. The behavioral content may be served by a system thatalso handles the tasks of collecting and analyzing the widget-reportedbehavioral data. This system is referred to herein as a “contentprovider system,” as it supplies content for display on web pages.

The behavioral content displayed by the widgets can additionally oralternatively include personalized item recommendations. For example,the content provider system may use a browser cookie transmitted with awidget-generated request to look up a set of items (web sites, webpages, products, etc.) recently accessed by the user. The contentprovider system may then use these items, in combination with thebehavior-based item-to-item associations, to select a set of additionalitems to recommend to the user. For example, if the user has recentlyaccessed sites A and B, and is now accessing site C, the widget mayrecommend additional web sites (and/or other types of items) that arecollectively related to sites A, B and C.

FIG. 2 illustrates one example of how a widget may present a set ofbehaviorally-related items on a web page that may be hosted externallyto the content provider system. In this particular example, five itemsare depicted under the heading “people who viewed this page were alsointerested in.” Starting from the left, the first two items 128 are webpages on the “news.org” site currently being accessed by the user; thesecond item 129 is a web page on another external web site, and the lasttwo items 130 are particular book titles available from a merchantassociated with the content provider system 130. The actual images andassociated artwork of these items are omitted from the figure to improvethe quality of the drawing. Each image serves as, or is accompanied by,a user-selectable link to a corresponding web page. In this particularexample, the widget is displaying items that have co-occurred relativelyfrequently in the item viewing histories of users who have accessed thisparticular web page. The past browsing history of this particular usermay also be taken into consideration in selecting the items to display,such that the display represents a personalized set of recommendations.

FIG. 2 represents just one of many types of associations orrecommendations that can be presented via widgets. As another example,when a user views a particular product on a merchant website, the usermay be presented with one or more widget-displayed links to web pages(of the same web site and/or other sites) that are related to thisproduct. For instance, a product detail page (e.g. a page about aproduct made available for consumption from an electronic catalog) for aHarry Potter book may display a link to an external message board withusers discussing this book or to a news site providing sales figures.Other examples (in terms of the labels that may accompany thebehaviorally related items) include the following: (a) people who viewedthis page bought the following products; (b) people who viewed this pagealso viewed the following blogs; (c) people who viewed this web sitealso viewed the following web sites; (d) people who viewed this storyalso viewed the following stories on this site; (e) people who viewedthis article on site A also viewed the following article on site B; (f)people who viewed this story watched the following video clips; (g)people who viewed this web site also clicked on the following ads, (h)the following items are recommended based on your visit to this andother web sites; (i) the following items are recommended based on yourpurchases, ratings, and/or visits. These descriptive labels may, butneed not, actually be included in the widget-generated display 126.Although a product detail page for a merchant is described above, othertypes of item detail pages are contemplated. For example, news articledetail pages, social profile detail pages, movie rental detail pages,among others. Such pages may include one or more of an item description,image of the item, user reviews, and other information about the item.

One potential benefit of the system, in some embodiments, is that itenables web site operators to provide personalized and otherbehavior-based content on their web sites without setting up extensiveinfrastructure for generating such content. For example, by simplyadding a widget to one or more web pages, an operator of a relativelybasic web site (e.g., one that merely serves static web pages) canconfigure the site to provide personalized recommendations to its users.Another potential benefit is that the system can generate personalizeditem recommendations based on the target user's browsing activitiesacross many different (widget-enabled) web sites of many differentbusiness entities. Thus, the recommendations may more accurately reflectthe interests of the target user.

The content provider system may, in some embodiments, implement areferral program that enables participating web site operators to payfor incoming user referrals, and/or to be paid for outgoing userreferrals. For instance, when a user viewing site A clicks on awidget-displayed link to site B, the content provider system may chargethe operator of site B a fee, and may credit all or a portion of thisfee to the operator of site A. Payment of fees may alternatively becontingent upon the user performing some action (e.g., enrolling ormaking a purchase) on the referred-to web site.

The content provider system may, in some embodiments, be operated by amerchant or other e-commerce entity that hosts a web site having abrowsable electronic catalog of products. In such embodiments, thee-commerce entity may use the widget-reported behavioral data to provideimproved product recommendations to users of its site. For example, thee-commerce entity can provide personalized product recommendations to atarget user based on a combination of (a) the target user's purchasesand/or other product selections on the web site of the e-commerceentity, and (b) widget-reported data regarding the user's accesses toother web sites. These product recommendations may be presented to userson the web site of the e-commerce entity, and/or on other web sites viathe widgets. The e-commerce entity may also implement an affiliateprogram for compensating operators of web sites that display the productrecommendations. For example, while viewing a page of an affiliate website, a user may be presented with widget-displayed productrecommendations together with links to corresponding product detailpages in the e-commerce entity's catalog. If the user clicks on one ofthese links and then makes a purchase from the e-commerce entity's website, the e-commerce entity may pay a commission or other fee to theoperator of the affiliate web site. In some embodiments, the e-commerceentity may additionally or alternatively pay the affiliate/operator forthe click-through event without regard to whether the user makespurchase, or may pay the affiliate if the user performs another type ofactivity. For example, the activity could be any that the e-commerceentity considers as providing benefit, such as the user: creating a newaccount, signing up for a credit card offered by the merchant, clickingon an advertisement, adding a review or other user-generated content,among many other possibilities.

II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE (FIG. 1)

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a content provider system 100operated by a content provider business entity. (Although the term“content provider” is sometimes used in the art to refer to an originalcreator or author of content, the term is used more generally herein torefer to an entity or system that provides content to users.) Thecontent provider system 100 comprises a combination of hardware andsoftware for interacting over a local (LAN) or wide-area network (WAN),such as the Internet, with user computing devices 106 (one shown) of endusers. The user computing devices 106 may, for example, include personalcomputers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, electronicbook readers, interactive television systems, set top boxes fortelevisions, and other types of devices that include web browsingcapabilities. In the particular embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the contentprovider system also hosts an e-commerce web site that includesfunctionality for users to browse and make purchases from an electroniccatalog of items, and to rate and tag particular catalog items. As willbe recognized, however, the content provider system 100 and contentprovider entity need not be associated with any, or any particular typeof, e-commerce site or business.

FIG. 1 also depicts a plurality of web sites 104 operated by a pluralityof entities. Each web site 104 comprises a web server 101 (implementedas one or more physical servers) for receiving and responding to pagerequests from browsers/computing devices 106 of end users. In someinstances, an end user may be an automated agent or “bot” that emulatesan actual user, or may be a group of individuals who share a computer.Each web site 104 includes at least one HTML file that includes widgetcode for interacting with the content provider system 100. As describedbelow, the content provider system 100 may host a web site that providesan interactive service for the web site operators to obtain customizedwidgets to add to pages of their sites 104. (The term “operator” or“site owner,” as used herein in the context of a member site 104, refersgenerally to the business entity or individual primarily responsible forthe member site's content.)

The web sites 104 that include widget code for interacting with thecontent provider system 100, and the operators of these sites 104, maybe referred to herein as being “members” of the content provider'snetwork. Ideally, many thousands of independent web sites are members ofthis network, such that a significant segment of users' web browsingactivities can be monitored. A web site operator wishing to become amember of this network may do so in some embodiments by registering withthe content provider's widget service. As part of this process, thesystem 100 may assign a unique member ID to the member site 104 or toits operator.

Some of the web sites 104 may host electronic catalogs or repositoriesof items that are available for purchase, rent, download, subscription,viewing, and/or some other form of consumption. Examples includeretailer web sites, music and video download sites, online travelreservation sites, news sites, auction sites, shopping portals, datingsites, social networking sites, aggregator sites, and sites that providea combination of these functions. As such, as used herein, the term“item” is used broadly and without limitation, and includes generallyany object which may be selected by a user to be displayed, purchased,rented, downloaded, subscribed to, or otherwise acted upon. Examples ofitems include web pages, web sites, URLs, physical products, digitalproducts, blogs, blog entries, news articles, RSS feeds, advertisements,social networking applications, users, and podcasts.

The member web sites 104 may be operated or provided by differentbusiness entities from one another and by entities other than theoperator/provider of the content provider system 100. In a typicalscenario, an end user 106 visits a particular web site 104A and accessesan electronic catalog or repository of items hosted by the web site104A. The end user 106 initiates an access to a particular page of website 104A by causing a page request 102 to be sent to the web server 101of the web site 104A. The page request 102 typically corresponds to someaction, which may be a request to view the home page of web site, toview a particular item or category of items, to process a purchase of anitem, and so forth. The web server 101 typically responds to the pagerequest 102 with an HTML file 103 of a web page 125, although othermarkup languages such as XHTML may be used. The HTML files 103 typicallycontains static and/or dynamic content, such as descriptions of items,hypertext links to other items on or external to the web site 104A,purchase confirmations, and any other information germane to the pagerequest 102.

The HTML file 103 also includes a format-appropriate mechanism forinstantiating a widget on the end-user's computing device 106. Thewidget may comprise, for example, JavaScript code, although the widgetsmay also be implemented using Adobe Flash, ActiveX, VBScript, or anotherscripting language. The widget may be fully contained in an HTML file103 as served by the web server 101. In one embodiment, the HTML filecontains a portion of the widget (e.g., a single line of code) thatcauses the browser 124 to dynamically load one or more widget codemodules from the content provider system 100 and/or the browser's cache.In some cases, the operator of the web site 104A may provide its ownwidget code designed to interoperate with the content provider system100.

Upon receipt of the HTML file 103 containing the widget code, thebrowser 124 on the end-user's computer will, in some embodiments,instantiate the widget by executing the widget code. The widget mayinclude or have access to parameters that describe the context of theweb page and page request, an item identifier, an event identifier(which may codify the events “purchase,” “view,” “add to cart,” and soforth), a user identifier, if known, default content to be displayed inthe absence of (or before retrieval of) content from the providersystem, the member ID of the member site 104 on which the widget isinstalled, and so forth. These identifiers may be createdprogrammatically by the operator; alternatively, in some embodiments,the operator need not provide any special parameters, and the widget andcontent provider system 100 may infer parameters as discussed below.(For example, the content provider system may use part of the URI of theweb page 125 as an item identifier.) In this manner, the contentprovider system 100 provides flexibility to the operators of the memberweb sites 104: some may choose detailed customization of widgets withfine-grained control over parameters, while others may choose a “plugand play” approach comprising little more than, for example, adding acouple lines of JavaScript to selected web pages 125. This JavaScript ispotentially automatically generated for the operators by contentprovider 100.

Once instantiated on an end user's computing device 106, the widget maygenerate at least one request 120 to a web server 121, or another typeof server, of the content-provider system 100. These requests may, butneed not, be made in accordance with an API (Application ProgramInterface) or a web services interface. The widget-generated request 120may contain information regarding the context of the web page 103 and/orpage request 102, such as the URL of the web page, an identifier of anitem associated with the web page, an event type identifier, and/or auser identifier. Additionally, the widget-generated request may includea browser cookie that includes a user identifier (which may be the sameas or different from the previously-mentioned user identifier), asession identifier, or both. The user identifiers may identifyparticular user computing devices 106 or clients without identifyingparticular individuals. Thus, for example, if multiple family membersshare a particular computer 106, the system 100 may treat these familymembers collectively as a single user. The widget-generated request 120may also include the member ID of the corresponding member site 104; forexample, a widget installed on a page of member site A may be configuredto send site A's member ID with the requests 120 it generates.

As end users perform specific types of item-related events (e.g., webpage accesses, web site accesses, item purchases, item downloads, itemrentals, item viewing events, etc.), the widgets embedded in theassociated web pages 125 report these events to the content providersystem 100 via widget-generated requests 120. As will be discussed morefully below, the content provider system 100 may persistently storethese events (i.e., data descriptive of the events) in an event historyrepository 143 as part of a given end-user's event history. The eventhistory of a given user may reflect the user's accesses to manydifferent member sites 104, and may also reflect user actions performedon a web site of the content provider.

The widget-generated requests 120 may also include requests for widgetcontent 126 to be displayed on the web page 125. Requests for contentmay be included as part of an event-reporting request as describedabove, or may form a separate request. As the content provider system100 receives widget-generated requests 120 for content, thecontent-provider system 100 uses the context information provided in thewidget request 120, coupled with item-to-item behavioral associationsderived from aggregated user event histories, to generate or selectwidget content 126 to be displayed. This content is referred to as“behavior-based” or “behavioral” content, meaning that it is dependentupon monitored behaviors of the current user and/or other users. In somecases, the widget content 126 presented to the user may depend on (1)the user's identity on an e-commerce site hosted by the commerce system,and/or (2) the user's identity on the member site 104 being accessed oracross the member sites 104 generally.

In some cases, the widget content 126 may additionally or alternativelyinclude items selected based on content-based (as opposed tobehavior-based) associations between items. For example, while viewing aparticular web page, the user may be presented with links to other pagescontaining similar content or keywords. The content provider system mayuse content-based associations where, for example, an insufficientquantity of behavioral data exists to generate reliable behavior-basedassociations for a particular item. Hybrid content-based/behavior-basedassociations may also be used.

In the illustrated embodiment, when a web server 121 of the contentprovider system 100 receives a widget-generated content request 120, theweb server returns a response 122 with the requested content 126. In oneembodiment, the response is a HTML document that is configured to beembedded in an IFrame (inline frame) within the main HTML document 103that is loaded from the member site 104. This embedded HTML document mayinclude thumbnail images of, and links corresponding to, the particularitems selected by the system 100 to display (as described above andshown in FIG. 2). The content provider system 100 may generate thethumbnail images of the member sites' pages on-the-fly in response towidget-generated requests 120, and/or may pre-generate and cache theseimages. Upon receiving the response 122, the widget/browser displays thewidget content 126 on the user computing device 106 as part of the webpage 125.

The widget content 126 may be non-user-specific, such as descriptions ofitems that are behaviorally related, and/or related based on acontent-based analysis, to a source item being viewed. For example, thewidget may present thumbnail images of, and links to, other web sitesand/or pages that are behaviorally related, and/or related based on akeyword analysis, to the site 104A or page 125 being accessed. See FIG.2. The widget content 126 may additionally or alternatively includepersonalized item recommendations that depend upon the prior eventhistory of this particular user. This prior event history may include orconsist of actions performed by the user on other member web sites 104.

Thus, the act of browsing to a given site 104A may cause a page 125 tobe displayed in the user's web browser 124 with behavior-based widgetcontent 126 supplied by the content provider system 100. Because thiscontent reflects user actions/events across many web sites, thebehavior-based content tends to be highly relevant to the web page orsite being viewed and/or the particular user.

As mentioned above, the content provider system 100 includes a datarepository 143 that stores user-specific event histories. The eventsincluded in these event histories may consist of widget-reported eventsof the type described above. In some embodiments, the event historiesalso include events reported or monitored by one or more other types ofentities. For example, if the content provider system 100 hosts its ownelectronic catalog of items (as in FIG. 1), a user's event history mayinclude event data descriptive of any items the user has purchased,viewed, rated, or otherwise selected from this catalog; these events maybe captured by the system 100 without the use of widgets. As anotherexample, some web sites 104 may be configured to report events directlyto the content provider system 100 via a web services interface, asdescribed in U.S. application Ser. No. 11/694,758, filed Mar. 30, 2007,the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. As anotherexample, end users may be given the option to install a browsertoolbar/plug-in that reports browsing events to the content providersystem 100; in such embodiments, the event histories may reflect userbrowsing activities on web sites that are not part of the contentprovider's network. Thus, the event history of a given user may includeevents captured via multiple methods, including widget-based andnon-widget-based methods. Although a single event-history datarepository 143 is shown, different types of events or event historiesmay be recorded separately from others (e.g., in separate databases).

The user event histories may also reflect user selections of itemsdisplayed by the widgets. For example, with reference to FIG. 2, each ofthe five widget-displayed items/links may actually point to the contentprovider system 100. Thus, when a user selects a particularwidget-displayed item, the content provider system may record theselection event and redirect the user's browser 124 to retrieve thecontent from a web site 104 based on the user's perceived selection. Thewidget-displayed links 128, 129, 130 may alternatively point directly totheir respective destination locations.

In some embodiments, the content provider system 100 may cache web pagesof the member sites 104. In these embodiments, the content providersystem 100 may serve pages of the member sites 104 to user computingdevices 106. As one example, suppose a page of member site A hosts awidget that displays a link to a target page of member site B. Userselection of this link may cause the user's computing device 106 torequest the target page from the content provider system 100. If thecontent provider system has a copy of this page in its cache, it mayreturn the cached copy directly to the requesting device 106; otherwise,the content provider system may redirect the request to an externalserver of member site B. In some embodiments, the content providersystem 100 may alternatively host the entire member site 104.

The information stored in the data repository 143 for a given event mayinclude some or all of the following: an identifier of the accessed website (e.g., the member ID of a particular member site 104), the URLaccessed, an item identifier (particularly if the item is not uniquelyidentified by the URL), an item type identifier, an identifier of theuser (e.g., a cookie value that uniquely identifies a particular usercomputing device 106), an identifier of the type of the event (e.g.,purchase, view, rent, rate, etc.), and an event timestamp. When theevent reflects the selection of an item displayed by a widget, the eventdata may also identify both the referring site and the referred-to site,which may be the same in some cases. For item rating events, the eventdata may also include a rating assigned to the item by the user, such asa rating assigned on a scale of one to five stars or a “not interested”rating.

To enable users' actions to be monitored across the network of membersites 104, the content provider system 100 assigns a unique trackingcookie to each user or user computer 106. This cookie may be set when auser computer 106 initially accesses a web page having a widgetassociated with the content provider system 100, and may subsequently bereturned with each widget-generated request to the system 100. Thecontent provider system 100 may also support one or more additionalmethods for identifying users. For example, if the content providersystem hosts an e-commerce web site, the cookies used to identify usersof this e-commerce web site may also be used to monitor these users'actions on the member sites 104.

To generate behavior-based content, an association mining component orsystem 145 (FIG. 1) collectively analyzes the event histories of the endusers to detect and quantify similarities/associations between specificitems (such as pages, sites, products, stories, etc.). Item-to-itemassociations of significant strength are recorded in a data repository147 that maps specific items to behaviorally related items. Asillustrated in FIG. 1, these item-to-item mappings are used by awidget-content generation service or system 140 to select items todisplay in response to widget-generated requests for content. As furtherillustrated, the widget-content generation service 140 also accesses arecommendation service 110 to obtain personalized recommendations ofitems to present to recognized users. The recommendation service 110 maygenerate these personalized recommendations based on, for example, acombination of (a) the target user's past event history as representedin the event history repository 143, (b) the page or other itemcurrently being accessed by the user, and (c) item-to-item associationsrelated to the items accessed by the user. Examples of algorithms thatmay be used to mine behavioral associations between items, and to usethese associations to generate personalized recommendations and otherbehavior-based content, are described in U.S. application Ser. No.11/694,758, referenced above, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,912,505, the entiredisclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

Advantageously, the events pertaining to one user on one web site 104Amay be used to provide behavior-based content for that user on that samesite 104A, other users on that same site 104A, that same user on othersites 104, and other users on other sites 104. Because the contentprovider system 100 is able to track user behavior across multiple,independent web sites 104, it is able to detect “cross-site”associations. For example, the content provider system may detect thatSite A and Site B are behaviorally related; that a particular page onSite A is behaviorally related to a particular page on Site B; or that aparticular page on Site A is behaviorally related to a particularproduct available on the content provider's site or another web site.The cross-site associations may be mined, and used to servebehavior-based content to users, without any communication or sharing ofinformation between Site A and Site B, and without otherwise exposingany, potentially sensitive, user information to the operators of themember sites 104.

For example, the content provider system 100 may analyze the itemviewing histories of all end users across the member web sites 104—andpossibly one or more additional web sites such as an e-commerce site ofthe content provider—to generate one or more global datasets ofitem-viewing-based item associations. The content provider system maysimilarly analyze the item purchase histories of users across these websites to generate one more datasets of purchase-based item associations.The content provider system may then generate recommendations for aparticular user who is viewing a particular item by, for example,retrieving a list of other items associated with that particular item,filtering out items the user has already viewed or purchased, and thenranking the remaining items based on their degrees of similarity to theuser's past browsing history. The final behavior-based content presentedto the user may then include both non-personalized associations-basedcontent, such as a list of items related to the page or site beingviewed, and personalized item recommendations.

The content provider system 100 may separate the generation ofassociations from the generation of recommendations. In particular, theitem-to-item associations may be generated asynchronously (e.g., in anoff-line processing mode) with respect to requests by users, whereasrecommendations for a given user may be generated synchronously with arequest by that user. Thus, the significant processing that is typicallyperformed in mining the behavioral associations need not contribute topage-load times experienced by users.

In some embodiments, the content provider system 100 may performauthentication and/or metering/billing through a tracking and accountingsystem 130. As will be discussed in more detail below, the operators ofthe member web sites 104 may be credited or debited based on, amongother things, (1) their willingness and desire to enable widget content126 to be displayed on their web pages 125, (2) the widget contentplaced on their web page 125 or the web pages of another web site 104,and/or (3) the behavior of end users. For example, when a recommendationfor Item A (with a link to Site A) is placed in Site B's widget-contentdisplay area 126 on a given page 125, the content provider system 100may charge Site A's account a certain amount, and may credit a portionof this amount to the account of Site B. More typically, this transferof money may occur only if the user clicks on the associated link, or insome embodiments, only if the user clicks on this link and thereafterpurchases Item A. Tracking of these events, such as clicking andpurchasing, is possible due, in part, to the even reporting feature ofwidgets discussed above. Operators may be able to customize the detailsof the accounting system as applied to them, such as selecting betweenvarious revenue models (cost per click, commission, etc.) or setting bidamounts they are willing to pay for referrals related to a given item.

As depicted by 160 in FIG. 1, operators of the member web sites (“siteowners”) may use a widget configuration web site or portal 160 to buildcustom widgets. As part of this process, a site owner may select fromvarious configuration options, including options that specify the typesof widget content to be displayed. These selections may be incorporatedinto the widget code generated by the content provider system 100,and/or may be stored in a site preferences database 141. Examples ofspecific configuration options are provided below. The system 100 mayalso support the ability for the site owners to define new item typesand event types, and/or to specify how particular item and event typesare to be used to mine behavioral associations.

For items that are not uniquely identified by URLs, the content providersystem 100 may use an appropriate tracking mechanism to keep track ofunique items reported by the widgets/member sites 104. As one example,each reported item may be uniquely identified within the system 100 bythe combination of (1) an item type identifier, (2) an item identifier,and (3) a member identifier. The item type identifiers may be globallydefined within the system 100, meaning that the same item typeidentifiers are used across all member sites 104. Examples of item typesthat may be supported by the system include the following: Product,Browse Node, Advertisement, Article, AudioDownload, Bundle, Car,Comment, Document, Flight, Group, Hotel, Listing, Person, Post,Restaurant, Review, Service, VideoDownload, SearchQuery, WebSite,Journal, Poll, Deal. The item identifiers may be freely assignable bythe operators of the member sites 104. Item IDs need not be uniqueacross item types or across member sites 104; for example, two differentweb sites 104 can use the same item ID to identify different items, anda single member site 104 can use the same item ID to identify two itemshaving different item types. The member ID identifies the memberresponsible for reporting the item. When a widget reports anitem-related event for a non-URL-based item, it may transmit these threepieces of information (i.e., the item type identifier, item identifier,and member ID) to the content provider system 100.

In the embodiment depicted in FIG. 1, the content provider system 100hosts an e-commerce web site that includes an electronic catalog ofitems. The catalog is implemented using a catalog service 150, whichaccesses a repository of catalog content 151. The items included in thiscatalog may, but need not, overlap with items included in catalogs ofone or more member sites 104. Users may browse and make purchases fromthis catalog without ever accessing any of the sites 104 in the contentprovider's network. In addition, users may access the sites 104, and beprovided with behavior-based content (including personalized itemrecommendations) on such sites as described above, without everaccessing the e-commerce site. In the embodiment shown, a common webserver or set of web servers 121 serves both the widget-generatedcontent requests, and ordinary page requests for pages of the e-commerceweb site; however, separate web servers may be dedicated to each ofthese tasks.

The e-commerce site includes web pages (not shown) that are configuredto display personalized recommendations generated by the recommendationservice 110. These recommendations may be based on (a) the user'spurchases and/or other actions on the e-commerce site, (b) the user'sactions on other network-member sites 104, or (c) a combination of (a)and (b). By incorporating external behaviors of activity on web sites104 into the recommendations process, the e-commerce site is capable ofproviding improved item recommendations from its own catalog to itsusers.

In addition, the e-commerce site can provide useful personalizedrecommendations to a new user who has never previously accessed thee-commerce site. For example, suppose a user accesses member sites A, Band C, and then accesses the e-commerce site for the first time. Inresponse to requesting an initial page of the e-commerce site, thecontent provider system 100 can use a cookie transmitted with therequest to (a) look up this past browsing history, (b) use a dataset ofsite-to-product behavioral associations/mappings 147 to look up a set ofproducts that are behaviorally related to site A, B and/or C, and (c)incorporate descriptions of these products into the requested web page.The system 100 may also support the opposite scenario: when a customerof the e-commerce site accesses a member site 104 for the first time,the system may rely on the customer's prior activities (e.g., purchases)on the e-commerce site to select items to present to the customer on themember site 104; these items may then be presented via a widget includedin a page of the member site 104.

The e-commerce site hosted by the content provider system 100 may alsouse the cross-site item-to-item mappings 147 to display non-personalizedlists of related items on item detail pages of the electronic catalog.For example, when a user requests a particular product detail page ofthe electronic catalog, the web server 121 may incorporate one or moreof the following into the product detail page: (1) external links tobehaviorally related member sites 104, (2) external links tobehaviorally related web pages of member sites 104, (3) internal linksto detail pages of behaviorally related products in the electroniccatalog, (4) external links to pages on member sites 104 that displaybehaviorally related products not available in the electronic catalog.In each of these examples, the links may again be displayed togetherwith associated item images and descriptive text.

FIG. 8 illustrates one example of a JavaScript-based widget that may beincluded in an HTML document of a member site 104 to enable theassociated web page to display product recommendations. In this example,the widget is an IFrame-based widget that causes an HTML document servedby the content provider system 100 to be embedded as an inline frame inthe host page of the member site 104. The dimensions of this inlineframe are specified at lines 28-30. The widget includes variables thatspecify a unique ID of the member site's operator (see line 3) and aunique ID of an item corresponding to the widget (see line 4). These IDsmay be passed to the content provider system 100 with a widget-generatedrequest. Line 22 includes an instruction to generate a request to thecontent provider system 100 to record an event and to retrieverecommendations. Lines 12-18 specify how the recommended items are to bepresented in the inline frame (e.g., with or without prices and productimages). Widgets of the type shown in FIG. 8 may be generatedautomatically by the content provider system 100 based on the settingsor preferences associated with the member web site 104, or may begenerated by the site owners. Such JavaScript may, when executed, returnHTML to render widget content 126 similar to that shown in FIG. 2, withpersonalized or unpersonalized recommendations generated and displayedin accordance with the dimensions and display attributes specified bythe site owner.

With further reference to FIG. 1, each of the functional blocks orcomponents 110, 121, 130, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, 150, 151, 160 of thecontent provider system 100 may be implemented in a combination ofcomputer hardware (e.g., general purpose computers or processors) andexecutable code modules. The code modules may be represented in any typeof computer storage or storage medium. The communications between theuser computing devices 106 and the content provider system 100, andbetween the user computing devices 106 and the member web sites 104, mayoccur over a computer network such as the Internet. The user computingdevices 106 may include any type of device that includes web browsingcapabilities, such as a Personal Computer, Personal Digital Assistant,mobile phone, interactive television, or set-top box. The variouscomponents of the system 100 may, in some implementations, bedistributed geographically.

III. PROCESSING OF WIDGET-GENERATED REQUESTS (FIG. 3)

FIG. 3 illustrates one example of how the content provider system 100may process a widget-generated request. Upon receipt of the request bythe web server 121, the system determines, in block 312, whether therequest includes one or both of the following types of cookies: (1) acookie corresponding to the content provider's e-commerce web site,which may exist if this user has accessed or registered with this website, (2) a cookie set by the content provider system 100 via a widgeton a member site 104. The system 100 may cause the identification valuesfor all such cookies to which it has access to be associated with eachother in the repository 143.

The system 100 may also attempt to reconcile the various identities thatmay have been provided to it by the instant widget request and priorrequests. For example, if the present widget request includes a cookiefor a web site of the content provider, the system 100 may check whetherthe widget identifier provided in the present request is the same as anywidget identifier provided in prior requests (and therefore stored inthe repository 143). If such identifiers are not identical, then the webserver may cause an association to be stored in the repository 143 thatlinks the two widget identifiers.

Next, as necessary, the system 100 attempts to set or reset cookiescontaining identification information on the end-user's computing device106. If the widget-generated request did not include an identifier, thesystem 100 may create a new user identifier and cookie for placement onthe user's computing device 106 (block 314). In the foregoing example ofmismatched widget cookies, the web server may choose to reset the widgetidentifier to the prior value in the repository 143. Similarreconciliation actions may take place for the other data sent in thewidget-generated request.

The system 100 may then log the reconciled event data in the repository143 (block 316). Data to be recorded may include the Site ID, the ItemID, a timestamp, the event type, and/or other event data. The eventtimestamps may be used to purge “old” event data as needed, withdifferent types of events optionally being retained for longer timeperiods than others. The event timestamps may also be used to givegreater weight to relatively recent user activity—for purposes ofgenerating item-to-item associations and/or for purposes generatingpersonalized recommendations. The Item ID is a generalized identifierand may identify any object whatsoever, and may include goods, services,web pages, syndicated feeds, search queries, and so forth. Preferably,item identifiers are unique values. In some embodiments, the uniformresource identifier (URI) of an object may be used as an item ID forthat object.

At block 318, the widget-content generation service (FIG. 1) retrievesitem associations for the site 104, page 125, or other item being viewedby the user. This information may be retrieved from the itemassociations database 110. At blocks 320 and 322, if a prior eventhistory exists for this user/cookie (i.e., an event history with one ormore events that occurred prior to the event logged in block 316), thesystem 100 invokes the recommendation service 110 to generatepersonalized item recommendations for the user. These recommendationsmay be generated as described in the above-mentioned patent. Thesimilarities and recommendations to be generated may be limited to aparticular relation or type of item based on the general preferences forthis web site 104A, the parameters of the widget-generated request 120,and/or user-specific preferences.

The recommendation service 110 may generate the personalizedrecommendations by retrieving all or a selected portion of the enduser's event history from the database of event history data 143(optionally including the current event logged in block 316), and byaccessing the item associations database 147 to look up items that arerelated to items in this event history. Association scores reflective ofthe strengths of particular item-to-item associations may also beretrieved from the item associations database 147, and may be used torank the looked-up items based on overall degree of association to thetarget user's event history.

In block 324, the widget-content generation service filters out anyitems that are not appropriate for display. The filtering may be basedagain upon the general preferences associated with the web site 104A(e.g., item category preferences or a black list), the parameters of thewidget-generated request 120, user-specific preferences, and/or othercriteria. Next, at block 326, the widget-content generation service 140generates widget content that encapsulates a top-ranked subset of theremaining items. The widget content 126 may include item descriptions,item images, web links to places where the item may be purchased, and soforth. In the case of products represented in the electronic catalog ofthe content provider system 100, this content 126 may include or consistof catalog content retrieved from a catalog service 150 (FIG. 1). In thecase of external web sites and pages, the widget content 126 may beobtained automatically by periodically generating thumbnail images of,and extracting descriptive text from, the associated web pages. Siteowners may also be permitted to upload item descriptions andadvertisement creatives to the system 100 for certain types of items.

This widget content may be returned to the web server 121, whichconstructs a response 122 which includes the generated widget content126. This response is returned to the user computing device 106,whereupon the user-computing device 106 can display or otherwise makethe content available to the end-user. The widget content is preferablydisplayed as part of the web page 125 as shown in FIG. 2, but mayalternatively be displayed in a pop-up window, as an RSS news feedentry, or in a “pop-over” that appears when the user hovers the mousepointer over a particular object or area of the page 125. In someembodiments the content is read aloud for the hearing impaired.

A variation of the process shown in FIG. 3 may be used for users whohave requested not to be tracked. In one embodiment, when a userrequests not to be tracked, a privacy cookie is set on the user'scomputing device 106. If the system 100 receives a widget-generatedrequest that includes such a privacy cookie, the system refrains frompersistently logging the event in block 316, and refrains from settingany additional cookies on the user's device 106. In addition, block 322(generation of personalized recommendations) is skipped, such that therecommendations consist of items associated with the site or pagecurrently being viewed. In the example web page shown in FIG. 2, theuser can request not to be tracked by clicking on the “privacyinformation” link in the widget display area 126 and then selecting a“do not track” option on a privacy settings page of the system 100.

Widgets transmitted via HTTP for display on end-users' browsers are onlyone type of mechanism that may be used by the content provider system100. In addition to web widgets, or in complete replacement thereof, acontent provider system may use browser toolbar plug-ins, browserextensions, and other types of display mechanisms, including mechanismsthat enable ads and other types of content to be displayed on mobiledevices.

IV. EXAMPLE USE CASES

The following examples illustrate some of the various ways the contentprovider system 100 may be used to supply behavior-based content tousers. As will be recognized, each use case can be combined with any oneor more of the others.

Display of related web sites on member site. The operator of a membersite 104 may wish to use the widget service to assist its users inlocating other web sites of interest. To add such functionality, the website operator may augment its home page with a widget that is configuredto display outgoing links to other member web sites 104. The widgetconfiguration parameters in this example and the examples below may beincorporated into the widgets themselves, and/or may be stored in thesite preferences database 141 of the content provider system 100. When auser accesses the augmented home page, the widget may cause the user'sbrowser 124 to generate a request that identifies the member site 104.The content provider system 100 may respond by accessing the itemassociations database 147 to look up a list of related web sites 104,and by returning a widget display object 126 with outgoing links to thehome pages of these related sites. These links may optionally bedisplayed as, or in association with, thumbnail images of thecorresponding home pages, as described above. The list of related sitesmay be based on aggregated user browsing histories across many membersites 104. As a variation, the web site operator may configure thewidget service such that the widget only displays links to other membersites 104 that pay referral fees. As yet another variation, the widgetservice may be configured to additionally display personalized web siterecommendations to recognized users.

Member site registers to pay referral fees for incoming traffic. Asanother use case example, the operator of a member site 104 (“thecurrent site”) may augment its home page with a widget that merelyreports accesses to this page to content provider system 100. (Note thatthis widget need not display any content to an accessing user.) Theoperator may also register to pay other member site operators forincoming referrals. While viewing other member sites that arebehaviorally related to the current site, users may be presented withlinks to the current site. If a user follows such a link, the contentprovider system 100 charges the operator of the current site a referralfee, and pays a portion of this amount to the operator of the referringmember site.

Display of intra-site related items on member site. The operator of amember site 104 may wish to use the widget service solely to assistusers in finding items of interest on this member site. For example, themember site may be a merchant site that hosts an electronic catalog ofitems, each of which is displayed on a respective item detail page ofthe member site. To help users find catalog items of interest, theoperator may add a widget to each item detail page, and configure thiswidget to display other catalog items that are behaviorally related tothe item featured on the respective detail page. When a user accessessuch a detail page, the associated widget may cause the user's browserto send a request to the content provider system 100 identifying theitem featured on the page. The content provider system 100 may respondwith a widget display object 126 that includes descriptions of, andinternal links to detail pages for, the catalog items (of the member'ssite) that are the most closely (behaviorally) related to the featureditem. This set of related items may be based on aggregated detail-pageviewing histories users of the member site 104. This use case can bevaried by replacing the catalog items with any other type of item thatcan be included in or represented on the member site 104 (e.g., newsstories, blogs, blog entries, user profile pages, podcasts, video clips,etc.).

Display of intra-site personalized recommendations on member site. Inthis use case scenario, the web site operator adds widgets to itemdetail pages as described above, but configures the widgets to displaypersonalized recommendations of the member site's catalog items. If auser who accesses the catalog is recognized by the content providersystem 100 and has a meaningful event history, the content providersystem may personalize the selection of catalog items to present to theuser. For instance, if this user has previously accessed member sites Aand B, and these sites have a strong behavioral association with catalogitem C in the member site's catalog, catalog item C may be selected topresent—regardless of whether this user has previously accessed thecurrent member site. Again, this example can be extended to any othertype of item that can be included in or represented on the member site104.

Collective Electronic Catalog. Operators of web sites that hostelectronic catalogs of items can be given the option to effectively maketheir respective electronic catalogs part of a collective (network wide)electronic catalog from which the content provider system 100 can makerecommendations. As part of this process, the participating web siteoperators may add widgets to the item detail pages of these electroniccatalogs to enable the content provider system 100 to track on moretypes of catalog-item selection events (e.g., detail page viewingevents, wish list add events, shopping cart add events, rental queue addevents, etc.). The content provider system may use the resulting eventdata collected across the collective electronic catalog to detectassociations between particular catalog items, including both cross-siteand intra-site associations. These associations may be used toincorporate both cross-site and intra-site catalog-item recommendationsinto the widget-enabled item detail pages of the participating sites104. The electronic catalogs hosted by the individual sites may, butneed not, overlap with one another. In some embodiments, an electroniccatalog hosted by the content provider system 100 may also be includedin the collective electronic catalog.

Participation in affiliates program. In this use case example, themember web site 104 is enrolled in an affiliates program implemented byan e-commerce site of the content provider. Previously, the operator ofthe member site has manually selected catalog items from the contentprovider's electronic catalog, and has provided outgoing links to thecorresponding item detail pages of the e-commerce site. To increasecommissions, the operator of this member site adds widgets to one ormore web pages, and configures these widgets to display personalizedrecommendations of catalog items offered on the e-commerce site. Becausethe widgets display personalized recommendations of catalog items(and/or catalog items that are behaviorally related to the member site),users are more likely to click through to the e-commerce site and make apurchase. Thus, the operator increases its commissions, and potentiallyincreases traffic to its member site 104. The affiliates program neednot be implemented entirely by the content provider system; for example,as is known in the art, certain tasks, such as tracking referral eventsand calculating commissions, may be performed by a third party serviceprovider that manages the affiliates programs of many e-commerceentities.

Segmentation of users based on clickstream histories. In embodiments inwhich the content provider operates an e-commerce site, the contentprovider system 100 may segment/categorize end users that have not yetvisited the e-commerce site. When one of these users first accesses thee-commerce site, the category or categories pre-assigned to this usermay be used to select products to recommend and/or ads to display. Forinstance, if the user has previously accessed one or more electronicsreview sites 104 in the network, the e-commerce site may present theuser with an ad or offer related to electronics products. As anotherexample, the content provider system may use the data from member websites 104 to determine the user's shopper type in order to presentrelevant content. For example, users who visit deal and coupon websitesmay be classified as “deal hunters,” users of gadget-related blog andnews sites might be classified as “early adopters”, and users that tendto browse from one page or website to another to discover content may bea “browser” shopper type. This information can then be used, potentiallywith other information such as spending information, by the e-commercewebsite to present the users with ads, offers or items based on theshopper type.

Site-to-category associations. One variation of the preceding use caseis to use the aggregated event data of many users to computewebsite-to-product-category associations. These associations may, forexample, be based on correlations between accesses to member sites 104and purchases from particular product categories. For instance, if arelatively large percentage of those who access member site A alsopurchase a gardening product from the e-commerce site, an associationmay be created between this member site 104 and the product category“gardening.” Once computed, the website-to-product-category associationsmay be used to select the product category or categories most closelyassociated with the member site 104 or sites visited by a particularuser. Ads or other content corresponding to such product category(ies)may then be targeted to the user.

Where the quantity of behavioral data for a particular member site 104is insufficient to generate meaningful site-to-product-categoryassociations, content-based associations may alternatively be used. Forexample, the content provider system 100 could automatically extractcharacterizing keywords from the web pages of member sites, and generatekeyword-to-product-category associations using aggregated event historydata of many users. These keyword-to-product-category associations canthen be used to map a particular member site 104 (e.g., one for whichrelatively little behavioral data exists) to a particular productcategory.

This use case can be extended to other types of item categories, such asblog categories, podcast categories, and news categories.

User-to-user associations. The content provider system 100 couldadditionally use the collected multi-site clickstream (event) data tocompute similarities/associations between particular users. Theseassociations may then be used (with appropriate consent by users) tohelp users find other users to add to their social networks. Forexample, a web site of the content provider may include an area thatenables users to post personal profiles, and to receive recommendationsof other users having similar browsing behaviors.

Social networking application discovery. Social Networking applications,such as Facebook and Open Social applications, can be treated as anothertype of item. Developers of such applications could join the network asCPC participants to automatically promote their social networkingapplications to users of similar applications.

Newspaper site. The widget service may be used by a newspaper publisherto increase the frequency and duration of customer visits to thenewspaper's web site 104A. Beneficially, use of the content providersystem's widgets may provide the end user 106 with links to additionalcontent of interest on the web site 104A (other web sites 104) based onthe end-user's collective behavior on this and other member sites 104.The content provider system may be configured to support the ability toprovide recommendations of items such as news articles, includingarticle associations, which are filtered by category. The filteredarticles may be further ranked by popularity. In addition,sub-categories which further refine the category of the items may besupported. FIG. 2 provides an example of a news site so configured. Byproviding recommendations related to current browsing behaviors,widget-provided content may encourage the end user 104 to read morecontent on the web site 104A or other web sites 104. As each page maycontain paid advertisements, the newspaper may obtain more revenue witheach page the end user selects. Furthermore, as many newspaper web sitescharge subscription fees, raising the end user's awareness of additionalcontent of interest may engender loyalty and drive the growth of thesubscriber base.

V. ASSOCIATION MINING (FIG. 4)

The association mining component 145 (FIG. 1) may generate itemassociation datasets or tables for different types of items and events.For example, a dataset of purchase-based item associations may begenerated based on stored purchase event data, and a separate dataset ofviewing-based item associations may be generated based on stored viewingevent data. The association mining algorithms may optionally use eventtimestamps to accord greater weight to more recent events, such that thedetected associations strongly reflect current item preferences ofusers. The timestamps can also be used to accord greater weight toevents made in close temporal proximity to each other; for example, twopurchases made on the same day may be treated as more closely relatedthan two purchases made on different days. Examples of associationmining methods that may be used are described in the following patentreferences, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated byreference: U.S. Pat. No. 6,912,505; U.S. application Ser. No.10/766,368, filed Jan. 28, 2004; and U.S. application Ser. No.10/864,288, filed Jun. 9, 2004.

An example process for generating item association mappings isillustrated in FIG. 4. In block 401, the process selects a source itemtype and a target item type. For example, to generate a mapping thatmaps web sites 104 to related products, the source item type would be“web site” and the target item type would be “product.” Differentdatasets may be generated for different combinations of these twoparameters (e.g., website to website, website to product, website toproduct category, keyword to product category, tag to product, page topage, page to product, etc.).

In block 402, the process retrieves the event histories of some or allusers, where an event history is a record of at least some of the eventsattributed to a particular user. A given event history may reflect auser's accesses to many different web sites, including both member sites104 and a site operated by the content provider. In some cases, multipleevent histories may exists for the same user, each of which may beanalyzed independently of the others.

At block 404, the process identifies <source item, target item> pairsthat co-occur in a threshold number of event histories. Item pairs thatdo not satisfy a particular constraint may be ignored during thisprocess; for instance, when generating movie-to-movie mappings, moviepairs with dissimilar MPAA ratings may be ignored. At block 406, theprocess generates an association score for each <source, target> pairthat reflects the frequency of co-occurrence of the source and targetitems in the event histories. Various other criteria may also be takeninto consideration in generating such scores; for instance, a boost maybe given to higher-profit items. At block 408, for each source item, theprocess selects the top N (e.g., twenty) associated target items, rankedby association score, and stores the resulting list of target items andscores in a mapping table in the database 147.

In addition to detecting associations between disparate item types,associations may be mined using a source event type that differs from atarget event type. For example, by using a source event type of “view”and a destination event type of “purchase,” associations may begenerated of the form “people who viewed this item also purchased thefollowing items.” For instance, a dataset may be generated thatassociates accesses to member sites with purchases of particularproducts or rentals of particular DVDs/movies.

VI. WEB SITE REGISTRATION AND WIDGET CUSTOMIZATION (FIG. 5)

A web site operator wishing to customize its site 104 with one or morewidgets may first be required to register with the content providersystem 100 to use the widget service. Alternatively, the contentprovider system could publish a generalized widget that any operator mayuse on its web site 104 without registration.

FIG. 5 illustrates one embodiment of a method 250 by which a web siteoperator 252 may register with, and configure its web site tointeroperate with, the content provider system 100. This particularmethod is tailored for relatively advanced web site operators, andincludes steps that may be omitted. For instance, although a webservices interface is exposed to site owner/operator in this example,all of the features described above can be implemented without exposinga web services interface to any of the site owners.

In event 254, the web site operator 252 creates an account with thecontent provider system 100. A web portal or web site may be providedfor this purpose, such as that illustrated at 160 of FIG. 1. Returningto FIG. 5, during registration, the web site operator 252 may providevarious types of information such as an email address, a web site URL, aweb site classification, and account and/or payment information.

In event 256, following account creation, the web site operator 252optionally receives a Web Services Access Key ID and a password from thesystem 100, such as by accessing a personalized account page. The WebServices Access Key ID and password may be used to sign widget requestsfor authentication. In embodiments in which the web services interfaceis not exposed, the web site operator 252 may be given a unique memberID to be included in widget-generated requests.

In block 260, after registration, the web site operator may retrievesome or all of the following: widget code, a WSDL file which describesthe content provider system's interface to widgets, and a WSDL filewhich describes the content provider system's interface for member websites 104. The WSDL files may be omitted, particularly in embodiments oruse case scenarios in which a web services interface is not exposed tothe web site operators. The web site operator 252 may use the widgetcode provided or the WSDL interface description to generate client sidecode on the web site 104 using well known methods. For example, the website operator may use a commercially available toolkit to generate thewidget code from the WSDL file. This client side code implements aclient side API implementation 214. Alternatively, the content providersystem 100 may, via an interactive widget generation tool, generatewidget code that the site owner can cut-and-paste into one or more HTMLfiles.

The web site operator 252 may also be given access to a client library216 which includes code for common API calls. In one embodiment, theclient library 216 provides a bulk upload interface for at least two ofthe API calls, Set Stop List and Record Event. Other types of tools,such as a getting started guide, a developer guide, and/or onlinedocumentation, may additionally be made available.

In block 262 of FIG. 5, the web site operator 252 optionally uses thebulk upload API to provide preexisting end user history data (eventdata) to the content provider system 100. To perform a bulk upload inone embodiment, the web site operator creates and then uploads a filecontaining event data (User IDs, event types, item IDs and types, andevent timestamps) describing previously recorded events. Uploading suchpreviously collected data allows the content provider system 100 to morerapidly detect intra-site associations between particular items on theweb site operator's site 104.

During or following registration, a web site operator may use thecontent provider system 100 to specify various widget-relatedpreferences, such as the type or types of behavioral content to bedisplayed on its web pages. These preferences may be specified via thewidget configuration portal 160 (FIG. 1), and may be stored in anassociated database 141 and/or incorporated into the widget code. Whenthe content provider system 100 receives a widget-generated request 120for content, it may look up some or all of the site owner's preferencesfrom the database 141, and use these preferences to select theparticular type or types of behavioral content to display.

Various types of customization may be supported. The system 100 mayallow a web site operator to specify different widget customizationpreferences for different pages of its web site 104. This may beaccomplished by having a configuration page for each widget, or byhaving a system by which widget customizations are inheritedhierarchically or shared.

The following is a listing of a few types of customizations which may beoffered to web site operators 104. This list is not exclusive, and it isnot required that the content provider system implement all (or even asubset) of these options.

Widget display attributes—Allows the operator to specify the size,color, and/or display format used for displaying widget content 126.

Display Related Items—If selected, the widget may display descriptionsof items that are behaviorally associated with the page, site, or otheritem being viewed. The site owner may also have the option to limit thedisplay to related items within its own site 104.

Provide Personalized Recommendations—If selected, the widget content mayinclude personalized recommendations of items. The web site operator mayalso be able to specify the type or types of behavioral events (views,purchases, etc.) to be used to generate the recommendations.

Item Categories—Allows the web site operator to specify one or morecategories of items that are or are not to be displayed (e.g., websites, podcasts, products, videos, books, etc.).

Expose this site on other sites—If selected, widgets on other web sitesand pages may display links to the home page and/or other pages of thecurrent site.

Display outbound links to other member sites—If selected, the widgetcontent may include inter-site links to other member sites 104. The website operator may, in some embodiments, opt to only display links tomember sites 104 that offer a referral fee.

Pay for incoming links or traffic. This option may be selected if thesite owner is willing to pay operators of other member sites 104 fordisplaying links to the current site. A site owner that selects thisoption implicitly elects to expose its site on other member sites. Thepayments may be based on a cost-per-click (CPC) model,pay-per-impression model, pay-per-transaction model, or any otherrevenue model. In one embodiment, a CPC model is used with a fixed CPCamount that applies to all member sites 104.

Member site blacklist—Allows the operator to provide a list of membersites 104 to which no outbound links are to be displayed on the currentsite. For example, the operator could prefer not to provide links tocompetitors or sites with objectionable content. The system 100 may alsoprovide an option to create a white list. The system may also supportthe ability for the operator to specify entire categories of membersites to be included or excluded.

Use Thumbnail Images—Allows the operator to specify whether images, suchas thumbnail depictions of recommended items, should be included in thewidget content.

Participate in Affiliate Marketing Program. If selected, the widgetcontent 126 will include personalized and/or non-personalizedrecommendations of catalog items available on the content provider'ssite. When a user clicks on such a product and then makes a purchase,the content provider will pay the site owner a commission. Theaffiliates program may otherwise be implemented as described in U.S.Pat. No. 6,029,141, the entire disclosure of which is herebyincorporated by reference.

VII. WIDGET-BASED EVENT REPORTING AND STORAGE

A widget-generated request from a user's browser to the content providersystem 100 may include a specific API call which directs the contentprovider system 100 to store the event. Alternatively, the widget maysimply report event data, and the content provider system 100 maydetermine whether or not to store the event. The event data may bereported via a dedicated request, or as part of a request for widgetcontent 126. The types of user-generated events that may be reported bythe widgets and recorded by the content provider system 100 may include,for example, viewing items, purchasing items, renting items, downloadingitems, placing items in an electronic shopping cart, rating items,submitting comments on items, and keyword searches. Supplementaryinformation regarding each such event may also be reported, such thetype of the event, an identifier of the user (which may be a session IDif the user is unknown or unrecognized), and an identifier of the item.

The web site 104A may dynamically “fill in” parameters such as an APIcall, item identifiers, and so forth. For example, the widget, onceinstantiated on an end-user's device 106, may determine parameters fromthe context of the web page 125. Those of reasonable skill in the artwill recognize that the widget may do so, for example, by dynamicallyexamining the web page's document object model. For example, the widgetcould be set to choose the text in the largest header of the web page toserve as an item identifier and the item type identifier could beinferred from a hierarchical analysis of the page's navigation options.On the other hand, information which is not explicitly reported by thewidget, either through being “filled in” by the operator or inferred bythe widget itself, may be inferred by the content provider system 100.For example, the content provider system may use the referring URI(Uniform Resource Identifier), transmitted as part of thewidget-generated request 120, as the item identifier when the requestdoes not explicitly include an item identifier.

One example of a web services interface that may implemented by thesystem 100, including example API calls, parameters and operations thatmay be used to record widget-reported events, and to retrieve behavioralcontent are described in U.S. application Ser. No. 11/694,758,referenced above. In some embodiments, this web services interface isused internally to the system 100 without being exposed to site owners.For instance, when a particular server of the content provider system100 receives a widget-generated request, this server may use the webservices interface to generate one or more corresponding API calls toone or more internal services. Alternatively, as mentioned above, someor all details of the web services interface may be exposed to outsideentities such that API calls can be made directly by the widgets.

VIII. END-USER PREFERENCES

The content provider system 100 may, in some embodiments, enableregistered end users to specify one or more types of widget-relatedpreferences. For example, end-users may be able to set a privacy optionin which the content provider system 100 refrains from persistentlyrecording the user's actions on member sites 104. Other settings mayinclude one or more of the following: (a) whether to be greeted by nameby widgets on member sites, (b) types of items to be displayed, (c)whether to be presented with personalized recommendations. The user'spreference settings may be encoded in a cookie that is written to theend-user's computing device 106 and returned with each widget-generatedrequest.

IX. WIDGET-BASED REPORTING AND DISPLAY OF USER FEEDBACK (FIG. 6)

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment in which the widget content displayarea 126 includes content supplied by other users who have viewed thesite. Here, the content provider system is providing recommendations 132from other end-users with respect to the current web site 104A and webpage 125. Such a system could be implemented by adding a new event type“Recommend,” wherein end-users can recommend a web site 104A or item.The content provider system 100 may then subsequently create widgetcontent that informs other users that the end-user 106 has recommendedthe particular web site or page. Advantageously, the content providersystem 100 may provide similarities-like mappings of end-users to otherend-users, wherein an end-user 106 will see the recommendations 132 ofother users who have previously recommended the same (or similar) itemsas the end-user.

X. ACCOUNTING FOR SITE-TO-SITE REFERRALS

FIG. 7 illustrates a method that may be implemented by the contentprovider system to implement cost-per-click (CPC) referral model. Inparticular, the drawing illustrates the steps that may be performed bythe system 100 when a user clicks on a widget-displayed link from onemember site 140 to another member site 140. The hyperlink reference maybe similar tohref=www.cps.com/redirect?source=website1url&target=website2url&member=a5db . . . , where the parameter “source” is the URL or web site on whichthe widget content is displayed, the parameter “target” is the URL towhich the browser is to be redirected, and the parameter “member”specifies the member ID of the member site 140 or its operator. Otherparameters (not shown), such as Item ID, may also be included, and therequest may be accompanied by a tracking cookie that identifies theuser.

At block 502, a web server 121 of the content provider system 100, uponreceipt of a redirect request from the user's browser 124, redirects thebrowser to the target URL. Such redirection may be accomplished, as isknown in the art, through a response which includes html meta tagredirection, 301 redirection, or similar mechanisms. Advantageously, theweb server 101 records the redirection/item selection event in the eventhistory data repository as part of the user's event history.

At block 504, the content provider system, and more specifically theaccounting component 130, may attempt to account for the redirectionevent. As shown in FIG. 1, the accounting component 130 may retrieveaccount preferences from the repository 141. If either the target or thesource is not CPC-enabled, the accounting component 130 may cause anotification to be sent to the non-CPC enabled web site operator (notshown). The notification may include an estimate as to the amount ofrevenue that may be generated by the non-CPC enabled web site operatorif it were to enable CPC, and may include instructions for how to enableCPC accounting. In other embodiments, as shown in FIG. 7, if either thesource or the target are not CPC-enabled, the accounting component maysimply do nothing.

At block 506, if the source and target are not commonly owned, theaccounting mechanism may debit or credit the source's account and maydebit or credit a greater or lesser amount to the target's account. Forexample, for each redirection, the content provider system may deduct$0.30 from the target's account and credit $0.27 to the source'saccount. In such a system, the content provider system may be describedas acting as an intermediary between the source and target, wherein thetarget pays $0.27 per redirect to the source (as payment for traffic)and $0.03 per redirect to the content provider system (as a usage fee).As another example, the content provider system may credit $0.10 to thetarget (as a stipend for providing content) while debiting $0.15 fromthe source (as a fee for providing content on the source's web page thatan end-user has found interesting enough to click-through). Such asystem may be advantageous for some source web sites if, for example,the web site has an additional revenue generation system (other than thecontent provider system) that pays for page views of the source.

Alternatively, if the source and target are commonly owned, theaccounting mechanism may credit or debit a usage fee (or stipend) to theweb site operator's account. For example, the content provider systemmay charge $0.10 the web site operator for each commonly-ownedredirection as a fee for usage of the content provider system'srecommendations, widgets, repositories, and so forth. Alternatively, thecontent provider system may credit the web site operator's account $0.10for each commonly-owned redirection as a stipend for using the contentprovider system. Such a stipend may aid the owner of the contentprovider system in increasing usage and penetration of the contentprovider system. The content provider system may debit or creditdiffering amounts to different operators, types of web sites and items,time of day, etc.

These examples are merely illustrative, and numerous other revenuemodels are possible. For example, the content provider system 100 mayprovide commission-based revenue generation, wherein a target web siteoperator agrees to pay a commission to the content provider when a userthat has been redirected to the target through a widget-displayed linksubsequently performs an action (such as making a purchase) on thetarget web site. The commission may be set to occur only if the userpurchases an item within a certain time period of being redirected.

The accounting system 130 may implement tracking of commission-basedaccounting by polling the event history repository 143 for an eventhistory of the present user that satisfies the commission pattern. As anexample, if a target has enabled purchase-based commissions for a givenitem, whenever a widget generates a request indicating that a given userhas purchased that item, the accounting system may inquire into theevent data repository 143 to determine if that user was previouslydirected to the target item or web page by clicking widget-generatedcontent. In another embodiment, the widget may transmit sessionidentifiers, and a commission accounting event will be generated by theaccounting component 130 if the session history of the identifierindicates a redirect to an item and a subsequent purchase.

The content provider system may be configured to track multipleredirections across multiple sites in the same “browsing session” of anend-user. As an example of such “transitive” redirects, if an end-useris redirected from site A to site B, and then subsequently redirectedfrom site B to site C, and then purchases an item on site C, the contentprovider system may generate commission events for site A and for siteB. In some embodiments, site C will be debited a commission amount forboth site A and B. In other embodiments, Site C will be debited acommission for site B, and site B will be debited a commission for siteA.

The event histories and data relied upon by the accounting system neednot be obtained solely from widgets. As mentioned above, the contentprovider system 100 may allow operators to self-report such data throughthe API, or data may be obtained from browser toolbar installations.User clickstream data may also be obtained from internet serviceproviders and, generally, any entity or program with access to suchdata.

XI. AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAMS

An affiliates program may be implemented by providing additionalcustomization options to web site operators through the mechanismsdescribed above. The affiliates program may be implemented in connectionwith one or more web sites operated by the content provider, and/or oneor more web sites operated by network members.

According to some embodiments, the content provider website is amerchant website that offers products for sale, rental, download orother consumption in an electronic catalog. With such a program, when auser clicks on a widget-displayed link on a member site 104 and thencompletes a transaction (e.g., makes a purchase) on the destinationsite, the operator of the destination site pays a fee (e.g. apercentage-based commission, a flat fee, etc.) to the member site'soperator.

An operator wishing to enroll as an affiliate may be presented with alist of potential merchant sites. If the operator chooses one (or more)merchant sites, the operator's web site (or at least a given widget)then becomes an affiliate of the merchant site. Thereafter, theso-configured widgets of the content provider system 100 maypreferentially provide recommendations to items sold by the merchantsite. The operator may be able to set a custom affinity level, wherebythe operator determines whether all, some, or most of therecommendations shown by a given widget will be to a given merchantsystem. The recommendations may optionally be limited to a subset ofparticular product categories, perhaps those corresponding to a theme ofthe affiliate site.

While the term “merchant” has been used for simplicity and ease ofexplication, nothing herein should be interpreted to limit merchantsites to systems that actually sell goods. Newspapers, blogs, searchengines, DVD rental sites, and so forth could all serve as a merchantsite.

Additionally, although illustrative examples herein are described asbeing implemented with merchant websites, it should be understood thatsuch an affiliate program is not limited to the underlying content orservice provided by the content provider system. Rather, the describedfees paid to the operator of the member site 104 could be triggered forany activity resulting in connection with any remotely accessed content.For example, instead of products for sale, the content may be adsupported information or services, such as news articles, search engineresults, web-based software applications, social networking profiles orblog entries. In such a case, the fee may be paid to the member web siteoperator dependent upon, for example, the referred user performing anactivity that generates ad or other revenue (or provides any benefit atall) for the web site operated by the content provider 100 (e.g.clicking on or viewing an advertisement, opening an account, etc.).

As a more concrete example, the content provider system 100 may operatea dating web site that generates revenue through user subscriptions andadvertisements. Using the systems described above, it is determined thatusers browsing pages related to snow skiing and food related pages onmember websites 104 also browsed a dating profile on the contentprovider system 100 of woman who is a professional chef and skienthusiast. Accordingly, a link may be provided within widget display126 to the woman's dating profile when the ski and food related pagesare displayed by member sites 104. If a user follows this link to thewoman's dating profile hosted by the content provider system 100, feesmay be paid to the operator of the referring web site 104 based on avariety of subsequent activities, such as the user viewing the profile,opening an account, a successful completion of a date with the woman, auser click on advertising shown with the profile, among many otherpossibilities.

As yet other example, the content provider system 100 may host anInternet search web site that generates revenue, for example, byproviding pay-per-click advertisements in conjunction with searchresults. According to this example, using the systems described above,it is determined that users browsing pages on member sites 104 relatedto snow skiing and food related pages on member websites 104 alsosearched for the term “ski resorts” on the content provider system 100.Accordingly, a link may be provided within the widget-displayed content126 to a page displaying the search results for the term “ski resorts”when the ski and food related pages are displayed by member sites 104.If the user follows this link to the search results provided by thecontent provider system 100, fees may be paid to the operator of thereferring web site 104 based on a variety of subsequent activities suchas the user actually clicking on one or more of the pay-per-clickadvertising, among many other possibilities. In some embodiments, thesearch results can be dynamically updated to provide current searchresults upon the user's selection of the widget link, while in otherembodiments the exact search results that were associated with thecontent on web sites 104 may be presented to the user.

XII. CONCLUSION

As will be recognized, the various features described above can also beused to display behavior-based content on other types of interactivecomputer systems, including interactive television systems, onlineservices networks, systems providing syndicated feeds, and in-storekiosks. Further, although described in the context of widgets, othercontent-display mechanisms that provide similar functionality mayalternatively be used.

All combinations of the various features described herein arecontemplated, and are intended to fall within the scope of thisdisclosure. For instance, although the example item-to-item associationsdescribed herein correspond to specific item-type combinations (e.g.,site-to-site, page-to-site, site-to-product, etc.), all combinations ofthe item types disclosed herein are contemplated and are intended tofall within the scope of this disclosure.

The foregoing description represents specific embodiments, and is notintended to be limiting. Other embodiments and applications that areapparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, including embodimentsand applications that do not provide all of the features and benefitsdescribed herein, are also within the scope of this invention. The scopeof the invention is defined only by the claims, which are intended to beconstrued without reliance on any definitions that may be implicitly orexplicitly included in the incorporated-by-reference materials.

1. A system, comprising: an e-commerce web site that hosts an electroniccatalog of items, said e-commerce web site configured to at leastpartially implement an affiliates program in which affiliates thatoperate affiliate web sites are paid commissions for user referrals thatresult in purchases from the electronic catalog; an event recordingsystem that records events descriptive of user actions performed acrossa plurality of web sites, including said e-commerce site and saidaffiliate web sites, an association mining system that uses the recordedevents to detect behavioral associations that associate particular websites of said plurality of web sites, and/or particular pages of saidweb sites, with particular catalog items in the electronic catalog; anda content generation system configured to use said behavioralassociations to select particular catalog items to recommend to users onparticular affiliate web sites, and to cause links to correspondingcatalog pages of said electronic catalog to be displayed on pages ofsaid affiliate web sites, said links being selectable by users togenerate user referral events for which corresponding affiliates arecapable of earning said commissions.
 2. The system of claim 1, whereinthe content generation system is configured to interact with widget codeincluded in a web page of an affiliate web site to cause said web pageto display said links when the page is viewed on a user computingdevice.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the event recording system isconfigured to record item selection events reported via execution ofsaid widget code.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the contentgeneration system is capable of using said behavioral associations tocause a web page of an affiliate web site to display recommendations ofcatalog items that are behaviorally related to the affiliate web site.5. The system of claim 1, wherein the content generation system iscapable of using said behavioral associations to cause a web page of anaffiliate web site to display recommendations of catalog items that arebehaviorally related to said web page.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereinthe content generation system is capable of using said behavioralassociations, in combination with a prior event history of a targetuser, to generate personalized catalog-item recommendations to presentto the target user on an affiliate web site.
 7. The system of claim 1,wherein the content generation system is capable of using recorded eventdata descriptive of an event performed by a target user on a first website, in combination with behavioral association data generated by theassociation mining system, to select one or more items to recommend tothe target user on an affiliate web site that is separate from the firstweb site.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein said behavioral associationdata includes a mapping of web sites to related catalog items.
 9. Acomputer-implemented method, comprising: maintaining event datadescriptive of at least (1) items selected by users from a target website, and (2) accesses by said users to a plurality of web sites otherthan said target web site; detecting a behavioral association between afirst web site of said plurality of web sites and a particular itemrepresented on the target web site, said behavioral associationdetected, at least in part, by performing an aggregated analysis of saidevent data over multiple users; using said behavioral association tocause said item to be recommended to a user on an affiliate web sitetogether with a link for accessing a corresponding page of the targetweb site, said affiliate web site being separate from the target website; and causing an operator of the affiliate web site to becompensated in response to the user selecting said link and completing atransaction on the target web site.
 10. The method of claim 9, whereinthe item is a catalog item represented in an electronic catalog of thetarget web site.
 11. The method of claim 9, wherein the target web siteis an e-commerce web site.
 12. The method of claim 9, wherein the methodcomprises interacting over a network with widget code included in a webpage of the affiliate web site to cause said catalog item to berecommended on said web page.
 13. The method of claim 12, whereinmaintaining said event data comprises recording events reported over anetwork via execution of said widget code.
 14. The method of claim 9,wherein the first web site and the affiliate web site are the same website.
 15. The method of claim 9, wherein the first web site and theaffiliate web site are separate, and the method comprises causing saiditem to be recommended to the user based on a prior access by the userto said first web site.
 16. The method of claim 9, wherein the methodcomprises causing the affiliate web site to display items determinedfrom said aggregated analysis to be behaviorally related to theaffiliate web site.
 17. The method of claim 9, wherein the methodcomprises causing the affiliate web site to display personalizedcatalog-item recommendations to the user.
 18. A content provider systemprogrammed and configured to perform the method of claim 9.